I’m Leavin’…on a Jet Plane…

As I packed a bag tonight in preparation for a few days out of town, it occurred to me that spontaneous, I’m not. That is so much of an understatement that anyone who knows me really well is probably doubled over with laughter with tears leaking out of their ducts.

Yeah, okay so I can admit it – I’m organized to a fault. I’ve been making lists for weeks and I even typed up a daily list of what outfit I’m going to wear down to and including footwear and jewelry. It’s kind of sick. But isn’t admitting it the first step?

I wish I were the kind of person who could suddenly at the last minute decide to take off for 10 days in Tahiti wearing only the clothes on their back and a duffel bag containing a spare pair of undies, a swimsuit and a toothbrush. I’ve even seen people in airports carrying duffel bags that have, like, spare room in them! This is a concept that I can’t really grasp. My “weekender” bag, on the other hand, is so jam-packed with clothes that I couldn’t possibly wear even if I were going away for a solid month, that it’s nearly impossible for me to load the thing in the overhead bin.

I remember when I was a kid and had absolutely no say in what clothes I got to wear and when I got to wear them. I vaguely recall Mom packing for vacations and me trying to load extra items in the paper bags that she used to pack her four children’s clothes in. Yes, paper bags – from the grocery store! There must be some sort of law against that, isn’t there? Geez. I was a “bag lady” at the tender age of six. And now I’m suddenly starting to see where the problem perhaps started…

The only time I “under-pack” is when I visit my parents at their cottage in Cape Cod, a place I’ve visited every year since I was in diapers. There is no need to get dressed up there and I can get by with a couple outfits and a swimsuit. Not that my weekender bag is any less full.

I remember one year loading up my suitcase with books, cassette tapes and a boombox (in the years before tiny little iPods made packing ever so much easier…). I realized the foolishness of putting a boombox in my suitcase when I saw the baggage handler pretty much drop kick my suitcase into the belly of the plane. When I reached my destination and unpacked, the antenna on the boombox was bent at a 90 degree angle, the cassette doors no longer stayed closed and I think a knob or two was even missing. Needless to say, that boombox went to boombox heaven and that signaled the end of my under-packing days. I figured I might as well load up the bag with soft clothes rather than hard boomboxes.

Anyway, I’m now sitting here after midnight typing away on the computer when I really should be fast asleep in bed. We’re getting up before the crack of dawn to take off and I really shouldn’t be puffy-eyed and cranky when I meet some of Vince’s relatives for the first time.

But my bag is packed…and I’m ready to go... Hahaha. I’m SO funny!! (See, if you young people ever listened to cassettes on boomboxes, you’d maybe know what song those lyrics came from.)

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week. I’m sure I will…as long as I don’t lose my official outfit wearing list. And I can fit my overstuffed weekender bag into that overhead bin.